


All That FJÄLLA

by numinousnumbat



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Gen, Welters Challenge 2018, canon levels of drinking, canon levels of swearing, misuse of physics thought experiments
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-16
Updated: 2018-04-16
Packaged: 2019-04-23 20:30:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14340345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/numinousnumbat/pseuds/numinousnumbat
Summary: Alternative Unity Key episode (3x09 “All That Josh”) where instead of singing “Under Pressure,” the questers have to put together IKEA furniture. For the 2018 Welters Challenge, Theme 1: “Build Your Own Quest.”





	All That FJÄLLA

**Author's Note:**

> [The Welters Challenge tumblr.](https://thewelterschallenge.tumblr.com/)

Quentin, Alice, and Kady stumbled through a door. They had come through the front door of the Physical Kids house, but it took Quentin a moment to recognize it as it was empty, completely empty. No one was there. The furniture and books and even the TADA wall sign were gone. There was a weird echo and didn’t smell like weed or stale beer. Even the lamp and silverware that had been on the ceiling were gone. It was a husk of their home.

“What the fuck is going on?” Kady asked looking around. The three of them completed a circuit of the downstairs and confirmed that, yes, the entire house was empty.

“First we should figure out if we’re at Brakebills,” Alice said. They turned to the front door but it wasn’t there.

“Shit,” Kady said.

Quentin could feel a small, telltale tingle in his fingers. “Hey, do you guys feel magic?” he asked.

Alice started going through some magical practice drills from Amelia Popper's Practical Exercises book. “I feel it, but it’s not working,” she said. Her fingers flew through spell after spell. “I’ve tried the Maiman’s Laser spell, Miller's Flare, and Atsuko's Spectral Refraction, and nothing,” she said.

“First Flash isn’t working,” Kady said, her hands moving through the spellwork. “Nor is Ugarte's Prismatic Spray.”

“How about something that isn’t Phosphoromancy related?” Quentin said. He flexed his fingers in anticipation of trying some spells.

Alice’s fingers moved quickly as she aimed a spell at Quentin’s head. “Lucky for you, the Persian Fainting Charm isn’t working either.”

They heard footsteps and Quentin looked up to see Josh and Todd walking down the stairs, Josh holding a medium-sized white pot in both hands. Josh and Todd paused a few steps up from the bottom.

“Hey, guys,” Josh said like they had just parted ways after breakfast and not weeks ago. “Me and Todd are updating the decor since we had a little downtime from the quest.” Todd blinked slowly and turned to look at Josh. Josh nodded at Todd and continued, “And I for one am excited to update this place, less funky frat house and more modern minimalist.”

“Ok,” Quentin said. This was strange, but not as strange as 94% of the rest of his life had been lately.

Todd pointed towards Quentin’s feet.

“Ah, yes, no shoes in the house,” Josh said. Alice and Kady slid their shoes off easily. Quentin had double-tied his shoes that morning and had to sit down on the bare hardwood to work the knots out. After he picked at the first one for a bit, Alice crouched next to him. She did the spellwork and his knot undid itself.

“Minor mendings,” she said.

“Great, the most useless of all disciplines,” Kady said.

Quentin used the same spell to undo the knot on the other shoe, enjoying the feeling of magic moving through his fingers. He finished taking off his shoes and as he stood, Josh was placing the white pot in the corner of the living room.

“What do you think?” he asked, dusting his hands off. Todd was standing next to him, staring and not talking.

“Needs a little something …” Quentin tried.

“It looks like crap,” Kady said. “You made an empty room look even emptier.” Todd took a menacing step forward towards Kady.

“It has a lot of potential,” Alice said, her hands up placatingly. Todd took a step back.

“Well, I don’t see you three helping,” Josh said. “I’ve been working on this by myself since no one was around or even picked up the phone.”

“We’re sorry and we can help now,” Quentin said. “Right, guys?”

“Right,” Alice said. Kady rolled her eyes.

“And I’ve done most of the work already,” Josh said. “Don’t come in here at the eleventh hour and take all the credit.”

“We won’t,” Quentin said.

“You’ve done jack shit,” Kady said.

“Why is only one form of magic working?” Alice asked. This was probably a good and important question, but Quentin didn’t know where to even start to figure it out.

There was a pounding at the door. Alice, Quentin and Kady looked at each other quizzically as the door hadn’t been there a moment ago. Should they escape while they could? While Quentin, Alice, and Kady were gesturing at each other, Josh stepped through them opened the door. Margo and Eliot stumbled in wearing full Fillory outfits.

“Oh my god, is this the Cottage?” Eliot asked looking around.

“We think so,” Quentin said wrapping Eliot in a hug. Everyone exchanged hugs, except Todd who stood to the back, as if he was guarding the white pot.

Quentin belatedly remembered the door, but by the time he looked, it was gone again.

“What’s going on with Todd?” Margo asked, pointing her thumb over her shoulder at him.

“Still working on that,” Quentin said. “But we have magic!”

“We have minor mendings magic,” Kady said.

“Minor Mendings? That’s occasionally useful,” Eliot said. “Well, I don’t know about you all, but this king needs a drink,” he said as he wandered into the kitchen.

“So you’re … redecorating?” Margo asked.

“No,” Quentin said.

“Yes,” Josh said.

“That clears it up,” Margo said.

“Todd and I have decided to update the look at the Cottage. We like this pot,” Josh said gesturing at the pot still in the corner.

“It’s a nice pot,” Margo said with a confused look on her face.

Eliot emerged with a tray full of pink martinis. Everyone but Todd grabbed one.

“What are you guys doing here anyway?” Quentin asked Margo.

“Oh, Eliot and I are laying low for a while we avoid our executions,” Margo said. She took a sip and nodded appreciatively at her glass.

Eliot was leaning against a pillar. “Hey, Q, how does time work in Fillory again? Can we just head back in a few weeks and pretend we’re our grandchildren or something?”

“Not exactly,” Quentin said, taking a moment to figure out the best way to explain his theories on how time worked for the Chatwins as they had traveled back and forth.

“Where did the glasses come from?” Alice said, stopping Quentin before he could start talking about Fillory and time. “There weren’t glasses before.”

“I took them out of the box,” Eliot said. “And luckily I always travel with martini supplies.” Everyone walked over to the kitchen and where it had been empty, there were now several large stacks of flat pack boxes.

“What the fuck?” Kady said.

Quentin felt something like delight as he looked at the pile of boxes. “Oh my god, I think this is it, this is our quest,” he said. “Let me check. Josh, how do you feel about putting together some furniture?”

Josh looked at Todd. Todd nodded once. “I think we feel real good about it,” Josh said.

Quentin grinned. “Well, let’s get started.”

“What are we doing exactly?” Kady asked.

“We’re putting together IKEA furniture to furnish the Cottage and complete the next quest,” Quentin said.

“That was my fear,” Kady said.

A decision was made - well, Margo ordered everyone - to separate the boxes into the rooms they were going to use them, and it took them a few minutes to do that. Then everyone picked a box to get started.

This was exciting: they had the next quest. They were going to put in the hours and furnish the Cottage and maybe figure out what was going on with Todd and then they’d have another key.

Quentin used Veg-O-Matic Slicing spell to open the box at the top of the stack in the dining room, a KLABB floor lamp. Margo was in the living room surrounded by the parts to a TOFTERYD coffee table. “Hey, I can’t find any instructions for this,” she called out.

Alice called out from where she had already opened a HENRIKSDAL chair in the dining room. “Same here.”

Everyone regathered in the kitchen. Alice and Quentin opened a few more boxes. “No instructions for any of it,” Alice said despondently.

Quentin had a sinking feeling in his stomach. “It’s part of the quest, we start on the easy stuff and we work our way to the hard stuff,” he said. “That’s how it works; it’s a journey.”

“So, you build a chair before you build bed,” Kady said. “Sounds like an ancient Chinese proverb.”

They split up and resignedly got back to work. Without instructions, this had gone from a kinda fun project to a much more tedious one.

“Shit,” Kady said looking up from where she was putting together a HENRIKSDAL chair next to Alice. “I put the leg on backward.”

“Minor mendings,” Quentin said. “Try Bujold's Sorcerous Nail Extraction. Add a wrist twist half way through to mimic the screw. Counterclockwise or else you’re just putting the screw in farther.”

Kady did the spell and smiled as the screw ended back in her hand.

Quentin sort of had a plan how to work on the KEJSARKRONA dining room table, but needed a drink refill from the kitchen before getting started. Margo was already there with the same idea. Eliot was sitting on the floor, his drink next to him on a FINTORP dish drainer box. “Yeah, if Q and I can work on a mosaic for a lifetime, we can surely put together some furniture in, like, a couple of days, right?” he said to Margo.

“Eliot, I love you, but you’ve spent almost an hour screwing in four legs on that LACK side table,” Margo said.

“I’m not really the IKEA type,” Eliot said. “Hopefully one of the quests will be a wine and cheese tasting where I can show my true colors.”

“Be useful and make me another drink,” Margo said, handing her glass over.

“Your wish,” Eliot said, and pulled out a martini shaker and started working.

Working separately was moving at a snail’s pace, so they started working in teams. Alice and Quentin were putting together a KALLAX shelving unit. Kady and Margo were also working on a KALLAX shelving unit. There were still four more KALLAX shelving units to be put together.

“Crap, I just split the shelf when I put the pieces together,” Margo said.

“Oh, can I use Elmer’s Repairing on it?” Quentin asked, still excited at the novelty of using magic.

“Be my guest,” Margo said and Quentin stepped over to the shelf to mend it back together. That felt really good.

“We need to get Josh alone,” Alice said quietly a few minutes later, fitting a washer onto a screw. “There’s something going on with Todd and he must know more than we do.”

“We'll need a distraction to get Todd away from Josh,” Quentin said.

“I’ll distract Todd by making an unbalanced gallery wall in the living room with the RIBBA frames,” Kady said.

“I’ll help,” Margo said. “Find out what you can,” she said to Quentin and Alice.

Kady and Margo headed to the living room, talking loudly about gallery walls. It did the trick, within moments, Todd had followed them into the living room.

Alice and Quentin waited a few moments before heading to the kitchen to find Josh.

“It needs a pop of color, I like chartreuse,” Quentin could hear Margo arguing with Kady.

“Josh, hey,” Quentin said.

“What do you two want?” Josh said.

“Just checking in,” Quentin said.

“Tell us what’s going on with Todd,” Alice said.

Josh sighed and started speaking slightly above a whisper. “Ok, so I woke up after that party - you know, the one with Bacchus - and I’m a little hungover and Todd asks if I want to give the Physical Kids house a makeover and I’m like ‘sure’ and he says ‘great’ and then we got here and there wasn’t a door to leave and he gets kinda scary when you don’t go along with his plan.”

“That’s not Todd,” Alice said.

“Of course it’s Todd,” Josh said.

“Todd isn’t scary,” Quentin said.

“Have you seen the man do a keg stand …. oh my god, that isn’t Todd,” Josh said. “Who is that?”

“We were hoping you’d know,” Alice said. Josh shook his head, still taking in the fact that Todd wasn’t Todd. Well, this was a waste of time.

“Where did all the stuff that was here go?” Quentin asked.

“We Vanished it,” Josh said.

“That’s not a minor mendings spell,” Quentin said.

“It’s not a real spell at all, it’s from Harry Potter,” Eliot said from the floor. “Most of the Harry Potter spells are impossible.” He sighed sadly.

“So we’re in a parallel dimension or a pocket world or something,” Alice said. That actually made a lot of sense, damn, Quentin wished he thought of that first.

“Well, the quest sent us here, so we should just follow the quest,” Quentin said. It felt like they were running out of time to save magic, this wasn’t the time or place to start questioning the quest now.

“The quest might have saved Margo and my fabulous lives,” Eliot said. “We should continue the quest.”

“I don’t have a better plan,” Alice said.

Todd strode back into the kitchen. “And that’s why I’ll never paint anything but Meier White ever again,” Eliot said, distracting Todd from the conversation that had been going on. Todd nodded once and everyone separated to get back to putting together furniture.

Quentin and Kady were working on a BESTÅ sideboard in the dining room, while Alice continued to work on the HENRIKSDAL chairs. Margo was still working in the living room on a TOFTERYD coffee table.

Kady put her Allen wrench on the LACK side table next to her as she searched for the screw she needed. The Allen wrench fell off the side table and she huffed and picked it up for the third time. “Oh my god, I’m an idiot,” she said mostly to herself. “Where’s the Truth key?” Quentin pointed to the keys that they had hung on the HEDRA rack next to where the door was normally located. Kady went over and grabbed it. “Penny, thank god,” she said breathing out. Everyone looked up from what they were doing.

“Penny says he doesn’t know why he’s here, but he says ‘hello’ to everyone but Quentin,” Kady said.

“Hi, Penny,” Quentin said looking towards the ceiling.

Kady rolled her eyes. “He’s right here,” she said gesturing to the space her right. Quentin winced, not a ghost, just bodiless, right.

“Yeah, Quentin thinks our quest is to put together IKEA furniture, but I think there’s an equal chance that Josh and Todd are just fucking with us,” Kady said to the blank air in front of her.

There was a pause.

“No, it’s stupid. We have a million boxes and there aren’t any instructions,” Kady said.

There was a pause.

“Penny says the library will have the instructions,” Kady said turning her head to where most everyone had gathered, sitting and leaning against the stairs.

There was a pause.

“Well, _shit_ ,” Kady said.

“Penny can’t get the instructions from the library to here,” Alice said quietly from where she was sitting.

Kady looked up. “Yeah.” She was shaking her head. “We were so close.”

“Well, there must be a way to do it,” Margo said.

“What about Xerox’s Duplication spell?” Kady asked. “It doesn’t have to be the same papers at the library. Hedge witches use it all the time to copy spells from safe house binders.”

“That would only work in the same dimension,” Margo said.

“If there was a way to make a Tesla Flexion,” Alice said, “Penny could show me the instructions and I could write them down after.”

“That’s a lot of work for two minutes, even with your eidetic memory,” Quentin said.

“Yeah, and we don’t have any of the equipment or the right magic,” Alice said. “Penny actually doesn’t have to be in one place. He isn’t tied to a corporeal body, so he can be in two or more places at once.” She was talking slowly as she worked things out in her mind.

“Ok,” Margo said. “But the instructions can’t be in two places at once, they actually exist, no offense Penny.”

“Penny says no offense taken,” Kady said.

“Schrödinger’s Entanglement,” Alice said, her face lighting up.

“We only have minor mendings magic,” Eliot chimed in from where he was leaning against the wall.

“It was developed for -” Alice started to explain.

“- Catflap doors!” Quentin cut in, suddenly very excited.

“Right,” Alice said. “It's a subcategory of minor mendings, it was developed to see if a cat was inside or outside even if you couldn’t see the cat.” She looked around the area and then stood to grab a blue FRAKTA bag that was hanging on the railing of the stairway. “We can use part of the Probability Spell to set the probability to as close to 1 as we can that the instructions are in this bag.”

Alice found a short IKEA pencil and started making notes on some of the discarded cardboard. “Ok, Penny will gather the instructions at the Library, I’ll cast Schrödinger’s Entanglement, and the rest of you can keep the Probability spell going continuously until the bag is back.” She looked up. “Kady, as soon as the instructions are in the bag, pull it out of the circle so it doesn’t go back to the Library.” Kady nodded her understanding.

“Penny, do you understand?” Alice asked.

“He says he still hates cats but he’s willing to try,” Kady said.

“Good,” Alice said. Quentin, Josh, Margo and Eliot started casting the probability spell, each of them starting a bit later than the person on their right, like they were singing a round, to keep the probability high that the instructions would be in the bag. Alice started Schrödinger’s Entanglement, and Kady was poised to grab the FRAKTA bag.

Just as Quentin’s fingers were growing tired - he was out of practice as it had been a while since he’d had to do this much magic - the FRAKTA bag slumped over with papers spilling out and Kady grabbed it and pulled it beside her.

Alice nodded and everyone stopped casting. As Quentin shook his hands out, Kady and Margo started sifting through the papers in the bag.

“The LIATORP instructions, thank god,” Alice said.

“Penny, if you still had a body, I would kiss you on the mouth,” Margo said.

“I’m not repeating that,” Kady said looking at a blank spot where Penny was presumably standing. “Or that.” She sighed. “Penny says he is glad he could help.”

Having the instructions made putting furniture together so much easier, and they started making actual progress.When people started complaining they were hungry, Josh made KÖTTBULLAR meatballs and RÖSTI potato fritters. The Cottage started to look more like a place to live. A boring, sterile place to live with no personality, but at least there were chairs and bookshelves and a few uncomfortable couches.

Quentin found Eliot laying on the floor of the kitchen as Josh washed the white VÄRDERA dishes. Quentin tilted his head at Eliot. “El,” he struggled to find his question. “What are you still doing on the floor?” he settled on.

“I’m pretty certain that I died and this is some version of an afterlife,” Eliot said, stretching his arm out to encompass the Cottage as a whole.

“What?” Quentin asked. That wasn’t the answer he was expecting.

“Well, one moment Margo and I are deciding the manner of our royal executions, and the next moment we were arriving here, so I think I just blanked on the part where I … died, and now this is the afterlife.”

“Heaven is an IKEA catalog?” Josh asked from the sink.

“Well, I did picture it having more naked buff angels, but I have friends and alcohol and that is, quite frankly, more than I was hoping for and probably more than I deserve.”

Margo rolled in a newly built STENSTORP kitchen cart.

“Ohhhh, that’s gonna be perfect for the OUMBÄRLIG pots and pans!” Josh said, rubbing his hands together.

“Hey, did you and Eliot die?” Quentin asked Margo.

“No, the key saved us,” Margo said as she started arranging the pots and pans on the cart. “We were discussing if we should die by a thousand pricks by quill or knife -”

“- like by pen or sword, _so_ poetic -” Eliot cut in.

“ - and then the first key was in my hand and I opened a doorway from the dungeon at Whitespire to here,” Margo finished.

“So not dead?” Quentin asked.

“Probably not,” Margo said with a shrug. She looked down at Eliot who was eating SOMMARSKÖRD gherkins out of the jar.

“Margo, my Bambi, my high queen, did I tell you when we were alive that I love you?” Eliot said. His looked around the kitchen ceiling for a moment and then his eyes focused on Quentin. “And, Quentin, my best friend, my king, I love you.”

“Feeling a little left out over here,” Josh said, drying a BESTÅENDE utensil holder.

“And Josh, my sommelier, my backup king, I love you,” Eliot said.

“That’s the martini talking,” Josh said, “and I’ll take it.”

It was hours and hours later, but the Cottage was nearly ready. Margo was artfully arranging a STRIMLÖNN throw on the sofa, while Kady and Josh were setting the KEJSARKRONA dining room table with TILLAGD flatware and DYRGRIP stemless glasses.

Alice and Quentin had volunteered to finish the final piece of furniture, a STUVA loft bed for Alice’s room. They hauled the boxes upstairs and started sorting out the various pieces.

“Have you found any screws or bolts?” Alice asked.

“No,” Quentin said. “But they must be here somewhere.”

They searched through all of the boxes and plastic wrap. Nothing. Well, shit. Quentin called a group meeting in Alice’s room.

“We’ve got another problem,” Quentin said.

“Of course we do,” Margo said.

“The STUVA loft bed doesn’t have any screws. We need to figure out how to put it together.” Quentin saw the looks on everyone’s faces, which mirrored what was going on in his head. “This is the final piece to the quest,” Quentin said, hoping to make everyone feel better about the newest problem. He didn't need people quitting on him now.

“Do we have glue?” Kady asked.

“No,” Quentin said.

“The door is still MIA,” Margo said.

“What I could do with three minutes and an internet connection,” Josh said. “Hey, don't look at me like that, I would order screws, not look at porn.”

“We have 37 leftover Allen wrenches and enough cardboard to build a really cool fort, but can’t transfigure anything,” Eliot said. “Not having all our magic blows.”

The discussion continued for a while, with lots of impossible ideas.

“We need something out of nothing, so we should pray to, you know, a god,” Quentin said.

“Or goddess,” Margo said.

“God or goddess,” Quentin amended.

“There isn’t a Norse god of minimalist home decor,” Alice said.

“Let’s just do a general prayer,” Quentin said, “And hopefully someone is listening.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Come on, unless someone has another idea, we’re out of options.”

“Let’s put some of those white candles to use,” Margo said and the questers set up a small circle in the living room using white LÄTTNAD candles.

Josh arranged taco ingredients on a VARDAGEN plate in the center of the circle. “Everyone likes tacos,” he said. “That includes gods and goddesses.”

“Should we hold hands?” Quentin asked once everyone was kneeling around the candles and taco ingredients.

“That’s disrespectful to Penny,” Kady said quickly.

“Ok, no hand holding. Um, does anyone want to start?” Quentin asked.

“I will,” Eliot said. He paused. “Close your eyes.” He made sure no one was peeking. “Oh, beneficent god or goddess, please help your humble servants with our noble quest. We beseech you to come to our aid in this our hour of need.”

“So say we all,” Margo said.

“So say we all,” everyone repeated dutifully.

Quentin looked around. Nothing happened. “I don’t think it worked,” he said.

“Maybe someone else should pray. Maybe I’m too fabulous for the type of god we need,” Eliot said. “I’m not really the DIY type.”

“Maybe gods and goddesses don’t answer prayers,” Alice said.

There was a warm glow in the center of the circle as if someone had turned on a half-dozen MAJORNA lamps. The glow materialized.

“Julia?” Quentin said. Was that really her?

She smiled at him. “Hi, Quentin. Hi, everyone.” It was her! “Yeah, this is weird,” she said. “But I heard your prayers and then I had this urge to come here and so I did.”

“Thank you for coming,” Kady said, stepping forward into the circle to hug Julia.

“I don’t know how long I can be here,” Julia said. “So does someone want to tell me what you need. I sensed that Josh wanted - ”

“Not important!” Josh interrupted. “We as a group need screws for a loft bed.”

They walked upstairs to Alice’s room and the pile of wood. Alice handed Julia the instructions for the STUVA loft bed. “It didn’t come with any screws or hardware,” Alice said. “We have a lot of Allen wrenches, do you think you could transfigure the wrenches into screws?”

Julia glanced at the instructions. “I could, but I have a better idea.” She held her hands out and they began to glow and the STUVA loft bed built itself in seconds. She gave a little shrug. “That’s actually a lot easier for me than making screws.”

“Next time,” Eliot said wagging his finger a bit, “next time, we pray first.”

The air started to glow around Julia. “Oh, shit, I have to -” she said before disappearing in a shower of sparkles.

“Cool,” Quentin said. Having a goddess on their side might make their questing that much easier.

“So we’ve built all the furniture, now what?” Margo asked.

“We need the key,” Quentin said. “It’s gotta be here somewhere.”

“Search the house?” Alice asked.

“Everyone, take a room,” Margo said. “I’ll take the kitchen: I need a drink after all of this.”

Quentin ended up getting the living room. He walked downstairs with Alice. “Maybe we should look around with the Truth key, see hidden stuff,” he said.

Margo was in front of them. “Well there’s a clue,” she said, pointing to a new piece of art in a RIBBA frame that said “KEY” in black Verdana on a white background and an arrow pointing down.

“Everyone, get your asses to the living room, we might have solved it,” Margo yelled out.

“Well this is lazy plotting,” Eliot said trailing behind them.

The arrow was pointing down towards the white pot that Josh had placed at the beginning. Kady and Quentin craned their necks to see inside.

“I see it,” Kady said and went to reach for it.

“Wait!” Quentin said. “No bare hands.” He covered his hand with his sleeve and pulled out the key. He held it up and showed it to everyone.

“IKEA key,” Eliot said. “I-key-a. The answer was there all along.”

“Fucking pain in the ass key,” Kady said.

“It took all of us to figure this one out,” Quentin said. “Unity key.”

“Sappy, but I like it,” Margo said.

“Was that there before?” Josh asked, pointing to a sign on the other side of the living room. The sign was also in black Verdana on a white background. It said “Questers: Exit Here” with an arrow pointing to the left, pointing towards a door that most definitely hadn’t been there before.

“Are you guys ready?” Quentin asked. He grabbed the rest of the quest keys off the HEDRA rack and together they all followed the sign, ready for what was next.

**Author's Note:**

> Some of the lines are from the show, and Margo's "so say we all" is from Battlestar Galactica. 
> 
> This was super fun to write; I hope you guys enjoyed.


End file.
